(Bloomberg) -- Move over, youngsters. Turns out, the person most likely to be passing around a joint when Canada legalizes marijuana is a middle-aged Gen X'er.
While current pot smokers are typically 18 to 34 years old and tend to be “risk takers,” once marijuana is made legal, the likely cannabis user will probably be a middle-aged “conservative experimenter” aged 35 to 54, Deloitte LLP said Tuesday in a report.
“Legalization may provide some Canadians with the opportunity to occasionally return to their younger days -- legally,” according to the report.
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Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's is pushing to open the market this summer. The nation's total cannabis market is expected to generate as much as C$7.2 billion ($5.57 billion) in total sales in 2019, and legal recreational sales are expected to contribute to more than half of the total, Deloitte said.
Pot companies are in the midst of expanding their operations and jockeying for market share ahead of legalization. The BI Canada Cannabis Index has slumped 32 percent this year amid concern that producers are overvalued. Despite the pullback, the top market leader Canopy Growth Corp. is worth more than C$7.9 billion and its value has increased more than fivefold in the past 12 months.
Current cannabis consumers who say they'll transition all of their purchases to legal channels are more likely to be men with at least a university education and annual income over C$50,000, the report said.
To contact the reporter on this story: Jen Skerritt in Winnipeg at jskerritt1@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Simon Casey at scasey4@bloomberg.net, Millie Munshi, Patrick McKiernan
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